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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24536407">Abominable</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarlotofLoyola/pseuds/Asswang'>Asswang (HarlotofLoyola)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Original Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bad Ending, Hurt Luke, Incest, M/M, Mentions of Slavery, Mind Rape, Pain, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Torture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:27:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,935</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24536407</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarlotofLoyola/pseuds/Asswang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate ending to Empire Strikes Back. Luke gets captured by Vader, and it goes south from there. The prompt: <br/>"A simple request: Darth Vader decides to fuck Luke Skywalker right after cutting off his hand in an effort to show him the true power of the dark side."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader &amp; Luke Skywalker, Luke Skywalker &amp; Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker/ Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker/Han Solo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>165</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Not much to say. This is extremely incest-y, non-con-ny, and was written quickly as a thread fill. Do not read if you're not into this. Also, the rape is NOT PLEASURABLE. It is not fun, it doesn't turn into dubcon.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <strong>ABOMINABLE</strong>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Darth Vader watched in disappointment as Luke Skywalker released his grip on the pillar and stepped off the platform, his face wearing a peaceful expression of surrender. So, his son would rather disintegrate in Bespin’s toxic atmosphere than conquer the galaxy at his side after all.</p><p> </p><p>Vader would not surrender him so easily.</p><p> </p><p>As Luke’s maimed body plunged into the abyss, Vader summoned every vestige of the Force within his disposal to grasp the boy and haul him back unto the platform. Luke’s eyes flew open. He gasped as the Force deposited him with surprising gentleness at Vader’s feet.</p><p> </p><p>Luke tried to scramble toward the edge, but Vader was ready this time. Vader held him down with the Force, then clamped a boot on Luke’s chest.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t join you,” Luke snarled and bared his teeth. “You might as well kill me.”</p><p> </p><p>The show of defiance pleased Vader. It reminded him of Anakin, whose anger and fire were now reflected in his son’s eyes. To reward Luke, Vader lifted his foot and knelt beside him without loosening his Force-grip.</p><p> </p><p>For a few minutes, he studied Luke intently. The boy was indeed strong with the Force, but possessed as much control over it as a droid over its own programming. Luke called on the Force all the while, but his blundering attempts to hurl it at Vader had all the effect of waves on rock. It was a perfect analogy, actually. Given time and knowledge, Luke could destroy Vader. Wear him down. He was powerful--- possibly more powerful than Vader himself. And when that time came, he could destroy Vader.</p><p> </p><p>Vader couldn’t let that happen. He would have to break Luke Skywalker.</p><p> </p><p>It was a disconcerting thought. He would have preferred that his son offer himself willingly. Still, Vader was used to taking what he wanted. Used to breaking people by exploiting their own fear against them.</p><p> </p><p>But what would be the best weapon?</p><p> </p><p>Vader probed Luke’s mind. He riffled through Luke’s memories and suppressed desires and fears. It didn’t take long--- Luke was just a boy, after all, and hadn’t had the time to develop his mental defenses against a Sith Lord. Vader spied a memory of Luke’s hand lingering over his friend’s arm a little too long. Of the sensation of muscles just beneath the skin. Of running his hands down Han Solo’s chest.</p><p> </p><p>There. Vader had what he wanted. Luke’s desire. The desire that Vader would pervert and turn against him.</p><p>Vader turned his mind back to the present and met Luke's gaze. The boy knew what Vader had taken from him, and shame and terror showed on his face.</p><p> </p><p>“You love him,” Vader said. He extended a hand and cupped Luke’s chin, turning his head so that their gazes locked. “You want him to fuck you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Damn you!”</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t a denial, just as Vader’s statement hadn’t been a question, but a simple fact.</p><p> </p><p>“You had no right---”</p><p> </p><p>Vader thrust his finger into Luke’s mouth, stifling the rest. Luke bit down hard, but Vader’s mechanical, thickly---gloved fingers transmitted no pain. Instead, he forced another finger into Luke’s mouth, absently noting that the boy had begun to choke.</p><p> </p><p>The act had been an impulse. And pleasurable. An act of dominance.</p><p> </p><p>Vader stared down at his son, at his fingers now slick with saliva and mucus, and withdrew them. Luke wretched and coughed.</p><p> </p><p>“Call me Father,” Vader said softly, “and come with me peacefully. This needn’t happen.”. He would give Luke one more chance. He owed him that, after all.</p><p> </p><p>“I reject you! Monster!” Luke gasped.</p><p> </p><p>“You will learn,” said Vader with a calm he didn’t quite feel,” to accept me as your Master and father.” He grasped the front of Luke's shirt and ripped it open. He did the same to Luke’s pants and undergarments, until Luke lay on a bed of shredded rags like so much shed skin.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, Vader sensed fear. Luke’s eyes were round and wide--- bright pools reflecting only Vader’s helmet. And still, he defied Vader. “I won’t talk. Won’t tell you anything!”</p><p> </p><p>Luke’s words aroused something in Vader. For the first time, he felt a stirring within the mangled knot of burned and scarred flesh where his genitals used to be.</p><p> </p><p>The boy was slim, and pale from months hiding in a fetid twilight swamp. However, physical training had sculpted his form so that his muscles showed firmly against his flesh, carving rippling grooves on his skin as he continued to struggle and strain against Vader’s Force.</p><p> </p><p>Vader was pleased that Luke had inherited Anakin’s beauty. It would make the task ahead easier.</p><p> </p><p>Vader used the Force to pin Luke’s hand and his ruined arm above his head, and did the same to open Luke's legs. Luke whimpered. His penis was flaccid, but as well---formed as the rest of his body. Vader ran a finger down its length, starting with the head, then trailing a slow, thin line down the shaft until finally cupping the base. He caressed the testicles almost fondly. “Stop moving, or I’ll crush these.”</p><p> </p><p>Finally, Luke froze. So the boy <b>did</b> fear something.</p><p> </p><p>“I have nothing to ask you,” Vader murmured “I know everything I need to know. And, in time, you will tell me everything I want to hear.” Vader continued his finger’s trail downward until it reached Luke’s opening. He circled its rim, pressing gently.</p><p> </p><p>At last, he saw realization on the boy’s face. Panic. Tears of rage and fear.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t,” Luke said. “Please--- don’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you understand what’s going to happen to you? You will be mine. Body first, and the soul to follow.”</p><p> </p><p>“Father,” Luke whispered. “Don’t”</p><p> </p><p>There it was. The boy acknowledged him. It was a blatant attempt to stop him, remind him of the blood they shared. Vader exulted in that victory. But it wouldn’t save him.</p><p> </p><p>Vader slid his saliva---slicked finger into the opening. Inner muscles strained against the intrusion. Vader ignored them and continued until his finger was buried to the last knuckle. Luke’s breath hitched. Blood ran down his chin--- he’d bitten through his lip trying to stifle a scream.</p><p> </p><p>Vader forced a second finger inside, Luke’s body buckled, but the Force held him fast. Vader withdrew his finger, then thrust them inside again with renewed force. Luke screamed as Vader began to pump his fingers..</p><p> </p><p>What little blood still ran through Vader’s veins sang and thrummed with rapture, throbbing to the rhythm of Luke’s cries of pain. Adding a third and finally a fourth finger--- stretching Luke’s hole to the absolute limit, his hand hot and wet and making obscene noises as it squelched in and out of flesh--- almost gave him an orgasm--- if one could call it that. His penis had been burned away in the lava. Yet Vader’s belly and brain were on fire. He was fucking Luke Skywalker. Hero of the Rebellion. Destroyer of the Death Star. Reducing this beautiful boy to raw agony and ruin.</p><p> </p><p>Luke wept openly now. No more pleading, just guttural cries for mercy.</p><p> </p><p>And it was all because of Vader. There may not have been physical pleasure, but the power surging through him surpassed anything mere flesh could have felt.</p><p> </p><p>With a final thrust, Vader withdrew his fingers. Luke’s head was buried in his shoulder, eyes shut tight, doubtless trying to will away the pain and humiliation. No mercy, Vader reminded himself. He had a lesson to impart: that the Dark Side ruled above all.</p><p> </p><p>And it would have to be the Dark Side of the Force itself to chain Luke Skywalker to his side.</p><p> </p><p>Vader chuckled. He--- *<b>this</b>*--- was insane. That he would rape his son with the Force, on this cold steel platform in the depths of Cloud City, under the gaze of countless Imperial officers staring down from the windows that ringed the wind tunnel. Vader <b>wanted</b> them to witness this abomination. They would know: if Darth Vader could do this to his own son, then he was capable of anything.</p><p> </p><p>Once more, Vader gathered his will. The Force formed into an invisible phallus between Luke’s legs. Luke froze, sensing the pressure against his bruised and bleeding flesh. Realized that the ordeal wasn't over. He opened his mouth to plead. Vader entered his son without preamble or hesitation.</p><p> </p><p>Luke shrieked, but the noise was lost to the howling wind. Vader wanted this to hurt, wanted to sear this act into the boy’s memory. Luke’s back arched unnaturally; his head thrown back so that his sweat---slicked hair formed a blond halo on the floor.</p><p> </p><p>Vader continued thrusting. Through his sensitivity with the Force, he felt the muscles in Luke’s anus give way, break against his hardness. Blood and mucus pooled beneath Luke’s ass. Luke’s splayed legs, naked body, head banging against the floor to Vader’s rhythm--- it was obscene. An act against nature itself. Just like Vader, with his mechanical limbs and scarred flesh, was obscene.</p><p> </p><p>An abomination.</p><p> </p><p>Vader lost sense of time, stopping only when Luke finally lost consciousness. Rather than rouse the boy, Vader allowed him this one release, a last act of mercy. He cradled his son’s limp body to bear him to the medical bay. There they would undo today’s injuries, because tomorrow was a new day. The training had just begun.</p><p> </p><p>In time, Luke would learn to regard him as both father and Master. He would break his son, and destroy the last gift Padme gave him--- twist and forge it into something as cold and deadly and as abominable as himself.</p><p> </p><p>And then---</p><p> </p><p>And then---</p><p> </p><p>They would burn the galaxy to ashes.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. THE NEEDLE</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Luke admires (though he wouldn’t admit it) the roguish smuggler, perhaps even harbors a nascent crush. The man seems so confident in his own skin, swaggering with an easy and impudent grin that Luke could never pull off.</p><p>That grin focuses on Luke now: “What else will it get me, kid?”</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter took a little longer than I expected. The first chapter was supposed to be a one off thing for a kink fill, but I saw one possible way this could play out, so please bear with me. I am not familiar with the Extended Universe or the Sequel [Abrams/ Johnson]  trilogy ( I refuse to watch them)  and I have to catch up on the prequel trilogy. I also haven't watched Clone Wars or Mandalorian, etc. (I'll try, though). So, this story jumps off the Original Trilogy and Rogue One, mostly. The rest, I either consult the Wookiepedia or make up. So please be aware that I won't dig too much into Star Wars extended lore. </p><p>Also, I think this story might go dark. Possible major character death (I haven't decided who). So, if that will cause problems later, please excuse me, I apologize.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <b>THE NEEDLE</b>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>After Ben Kenobi proposes hiring Han for the journey to Alderaan and offers what to Luke seems an exorbitant sum, Kenobi excuses himself- to attend to business, he apologizes, leaving Luke alone with Han at the table. Luke runs a billion questions through his mind, too irked with Han’s extortion to give them voice: <em>What’s it like flying against Imperials? Has </em><em>Han </em><em>ever killed someone- or rather, how many? And, what exactly is spice, anyway? </em></p><p> </p><p>Luke admires (though he wouldn’t admit it) the roguish smuggler, perhaps even harbors a nascent crush. The man seems so confident in his own skin, swaggering with an easy and impudent grin that Luke could never pull off.</p><p> </p><p>That grin focuses on Luke now: “What else will it get me, kid?”</p><p> </p><p>Luke smiles back blankly. Did he miss something about the deal?</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be paid well. Ben just said that.” Luke considers, then attempts a dart against Han’s insouciance: “Personally, I don’t think you’re worth it.”</p><p> </p><p>Their glasses sweat condensed droplets in the heat of the room, and all at once, Luke feels that he himself is trapped in glass, beneath the other man’s glare.</p><p> </p><p>“That so?”</p><p> </p><p>“I bet I could pilot your ship myself.”</p><p> </p><p>Han runs his thumb around the rim of his mug, catching beads of moisture. He brings his finger to his mouth and sucks, then gets up from the table. The Wookie copilot takes Han’s vacated spot, growling softly.</p><p> </p><p>“Better show me what you’ve got,” Han says. “If you can prove that you’re good for something besides blasting womp rats, I’ll give you a discount.”</p><p> </p><p>Han retreats further into the cantina, gesturing at Luke—with the same thumb he’d licked— to follow. Luke shrugs and runs to catch him. The guy probably wants to show off his ship; pilots were inordinately proud of their instruments— and impress Luke with its complexity, its tubes and galvanators and turbines. Whatever. Luke had spent all his life maintaining a creaky old moisture farm. He was used to machines. Any old ship wouldn’t impress <em>him</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Han nods at the bartender, who hands him a key on a chain. It unlocks a rusting metal door in the rear of the cantina that Luke would have missed entirely if Han hadn’t vanished inside. Puzzled, Luke steps into the room, and the door slams shut behind him.</p><p> </p><p>This isn’t a hangar or even a passage to the loading docks, but a rather cramped and moldy storeroom. No windows, just a naked red bulb flickering in the corner. Barrels heaped against the walls, boxes on the shelves and floor. There is barely room to turn around, or maneuver- and suddenly Luke very much wants to turn and walk right back out. He spins, lurching for the door, and stumbles on a crate. A hand grabs his tunic and hauls him to his feet.</p><p> </p><p>“If you’re this clumsy in a storage closet, I don’t see how you can find your way around a cockpit, kid.”</p><p> </p><p>“I have a name, you know,” Luke says peevishly. The room is even hotter than the cantina floor, and the stuffiness is making it hard to breath, to think. “It’s Luke —”</p><p> </p><p>“Skywalker. Yeah, I heard. Pretty name. Matches your face.”</p><p> </p><p>“So where’s your ship? Aren’t we going to see it?” Luke says, desperate to get the situation back on course. He feels, rising behind his irritation and the desire to swat away Han’s shit-eating grin, a growing unease. He remembers the blaster at Han’s holster, and how Han boasted of running spice and guns across the galaxy. Han wasn’t just a pilot. He was a smuggler, a criminal, and this is <em>Mos Eisley</em>. He could kill Luke and take — well, not money, but the lightsaber from Ben, whatever <em>that</em> was worth— and walk out with a whistle and a wave.</p><p> </p><p>Luke reaches behind, and finds the door. He fumbles for the knob, hoping the key is still embedded in the lock, when Han slams a palm against the door, trapping Luke between it and his body.</p><p> </p><p>“Changed my mind. I’m charging extra.” Han drawls.</p><p> </p><p>What? After s<em>eventeen thousand credits</em>? Luke swallows. “Better talk to Ben, he’s the one with the money.” He hopes Ben <em>did</em> have the money, and wasn’t planning to pull a Force-fast one on the smuggler. He isn’t sure Han qualified as ‘weak-minded.’</p><p> </p><p>“Not him I’m charging.”</p><p>“I don’t understand.”</p><p>“Sure you do. Cute piece of ass like yourself, don’t tell me you haven’t passed around the farm. I’m just asking for a fair cut.”</p><p> </p><p>Luke’s cheeks burn. He doesn’t remember his hand balling into a fist and slamming into Han’s face—or it would have, but Han catches Luke's wrist, twists it to the side. Then Han’s lips are on his, mashing and bruising, his body pushing into Luke, pressing him against the door, engulfing Luke in the scent of engine grease, sweat, and traces of something carbon-sharp that might have been gun plasma. At first Luke thinks that Han intends to smother him, that this is some sick smuggler’s game. Then comprehension kicks in as Han plunges a hand beneath Luke’s breeches and starts to knead.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not the first time Luke has been propositioned, or borne witness to sex. Uncle Owen used to caution him against men- and the occasional woman- with too-sharp stares during their rare trading excursions. Several times Luke had fought off drunks or boorish traders, human and otherwise, who’d ride into Uncle Owen’s moisture farm thinking they’d tempt Luke with a coin or two to “play”. Once, Luke snuck the airspeeder into Mos Espa and watched bound pleasure-slaves paraded in the city market. The buyers inspecting them hadn’t exactly been timid. Or gentle.</p><p> </p><p>None of these occasions elicited a desire for sex.He preferred whipping his skyhopper between Tattoine’s sheer canyons before executing a sharp V-turn to burst into the sky, a silver arrow aimed at the sun—the adrenaline of flight rather than flesh. Besides a few playful trysts with fellow farm brats, he’d always said no.</p><p> </p><p>Luke says no, now.</p><p> </p><p>Han ignores him, instead grasps Luke’s penis and thumbs the foreskin with playful pressure, not letting up on the kiss even as Luke squirms. Han’s grip on his wrist tightens, making him wince. It feels like Han is sucking the air out of his lungs. He manages to pry a hand against Han’s chest, but lacks the leverage to push the man off him. He isn’t bulky, but he’s got a good twenty pounds on Luke, plus the element of surprise. Luke reaches for the lightsaber at his belt.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not there.</p><p> </p><p>The older man relents and pulls away as Luke starts to sag against the door.</p><p> </p><p>“What the hell are you doing!?!” Luke gasps.</p><p> </p><p>Han raises an eyebrow. “Collecting an advance?”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be sorry if I’m not at the table by the time Ben comes back. He’s a—a Jedi.” There would’ve been more threat behind the warning if Luke’s voice hadn’t cracked at the last syllable.</p><p>Han chuckles.</p><p> </p><p>“Lots of old Jedi hiding around the galaxy. Is he the first one you’ve met? They’re sanctimonious pricks, most of them, but the ones who survived the purges know how to cut a deal. Your Ben knows, kid. Set you up just right for me. Who do you think took your weapon? He’ll take his time outside, and we’ll take our time in here.” Han grins and flashes the key in Luke’s face. “No interruptions.”</p><p> </p><p>He nudges his knee between Luke’s thighs and resumes kneading Luke's penis, still pinning him to the door. Luke feels the anger draining, and, filling its void, the bitter sense of betrayal. Ben arranged this? Han must be lying. Ben was going to get them to Alderaan, rescue Princess Leia, and make Luke a Jedi knight. The Jedi were honorable. They weren’t—they weren’t <em>pimps</em>. But how long had he known Ben Kenobi, really? A day? Hours? In the grief following Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s murders, he’d latched on to Ben in a desperate bid for stability and distraction, blinding him to the man’s true nature.</p><p> </p><p>The old man had given him a look before he’d left the table. Luke took it for concern. It might have been guilt.</p><p> </p><p>“Look,” Han croons,” you like me. You looked at me back there like a man dying of thirst. Let’s both get what we want. Let me have you, and I’ll get you safely off this rock.”</p><p>“Do I have a choice?”</p><p>“You can choose to enjoy it,” Han says. “But it looks like you’re already at half-mast.”</p><p> </p><p>Luke averts his eyes, ashamed. Despite his fear and indignation, Han’s ministrations are working. He’s stiffening down there, beneath Han’s insistent fingers, beneath the alternating pressure and speed of Han’s strokes.When Han stretches back the foreskin a hair’s length and grazes the tender flesh beneath with one jagged fingernail, Luke yelps, but it comes out a groan.</p><p> </p><p>Han works his hand around the band of Luke’s breeches, tugs them down.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re pretty sensitive. Pent up like a <em>baskshah</em> stud. I stand corrected—you must not have seen much action.”</p><p> </p><p>“Just get it over with,” Luke says, mustering a bored tone. If he must submit to the man, he won’t give him the satisfaction of watching Luke lose control- although the blood rushing to his prick hides nothing, and gives lie to the nonchalance he feigns.</p><p> </p><p>Dammit.</p><p> </p><p>Luke squeezes his eyes shut, hoping this is the worst of it, then nearly jumps out of his skin when Han’s lips close around his cock.</p><p> </p><p>“No, dont—“</p><p> </p><p>Han’s palm spreads flat against Luke’s belly, gently pressing him back against the door.</p><p>
  <em>Don’t move.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Luke isn’t sure he can. Not anymore. Not with Han’s tongue darting in and out, rough and wet, running strands of saliva up and down his shaft. Han takes one testicle inside his mouth, then the other; Han’s cheeks purse as he draws the air out of them, generating a subtle vacuum around Luke's balls, grazing their too-sensitive surface with his teeth until he returns to the head and slides its length down his throat<em>. </em></p><p> </p><p>There is no stopping the waves of heat between Luke’s thighs; his penis is a smoldering ember. He tries to warn Han. “Let go, I’m going to—!” It only serves to make Han speed his pace.</p><p>Luke is delirious. Drunk. The world contracts to the part of him inside Han.</p><p>He jerks and releases inside Han’s mouth, the fire coursing out of him with such intensity that it actually hurts.</p><p> </p><p>Spent, his knees buckle, and he pitches forward—the ground turned to quicksand—sagging into Han’s arms and chest, into Han’s now-familiar scent. Luke breathes him in deeply.</p><p> </p><p>Han laughs, low and hoarse. He brings his face to Luke’s and kisses him again, and this time his mouth tastes bitter-salt with Luke’s own cum.</p><p> </p><p>Luke would have lain there, in the heat of the cramped room now reeking of sex and mingled heat, with Han leaning over him with bemused eyes and moist lips, but there’s an urgent rap on the door.</p><p> </p><p>“Better bust it, Solo,” someone shouts. “We’ve got trouble. The Empire’s after your new toy.” The unmistakable zing of blaster fire follows. Cries of pain and panic.</p><p> </p><p>Han turns to Luke, unfastening his blaster. “<em>Are</em> you?”</p><p> </p><p>Luke murmurs, “Am I what?” It’s still so very hard to think.</p><p> </p><p>The shit-eating grin is back on Han’s face, though Luke doubts it ever left.</p><p> </p><p>“My new toy.”</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p>In the bowels of Cloud City’s highest level security brig, Luke convulsed against the straps binding him to the table. The medics warned Vader that Luke’s pulse rate signaled an imminent heart attack, so he released the boy’s mind—for now—then stepped back to let the medics stabilize him.</p><p> </p><p>A Sith <em>soul</em><em>scour</em> was agony to ordinary men. To a half-trained and raw Jedi, sensitive to the Force but lacking the ability to moderate that sensitivity, the pain would be <em>exquisite</em>. Push too hard, too fast, and you could obliterate the subject’s mind.</p><p> </p><p>Vader also had to take into account Luke’s youth. After mending his wounds from the previous day, the medics had swaddled his son in a loose white hospital robe reminiscent of his childhood tunic, open at the chest and sleeves to allow for the diodes and wires. It made Luke appear younger than ever, prompting Vader to wonder what Luke had been like as a child.</p><p> </p><p>Vader hadn't bothered to learn much about Owen and Beru Lars. They mattered less than vermin. Yet they had cradled this boy, comforted him, perhaps; shared his first words and steps. Vader did not envy them. That would be absurd.</p><p> </p><p>Yet he wondered.</p><p> </p><p>“Han Solo and me; That never happened. Not like that.” The interrupting voice was thin and slurred, but strung with steel.</p><p> </p><p>Vader motioned the medics away. They cleared the room in haste. If they heard too much there would be a fresh crew within minutes, and their own remains jettisoned into the Bespin winds.</p><p> </p><p>“It is a memory,” Vader told Luke once they were alone. “Not even <em>I</em> could manufacture an experience of that verisimilitude. Perhaps you had forgotten it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Han would never do that,” Luke insisted.</p><p> </p><p>“Do what?”</p><p> </p><p>“Force himself on someone,” Luke spat. “But <em>you</em> wouldn’t know anything about that. You’re trying to turn him against me, so that I’ll give in to the Dark Side. But I know my friends.”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure?” Vader coaxed. He plucked a silver needle from the tray beside Luke’s bed. It was coated with a potent hallucinogen manufactured in the depths of Byss. “If it’s not a memory, then perhaps it’s a dream. In truth, they aren't very different at all. A memory is the ghost of experience. A dream is the desire for experience. It’s easy to confuse them.”</p><p> </p><p>“No. It’s a lie.”</p><p> </p><p>Vader plunged the needle into Luke’s neck.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure?” Vader asked again.</p><p> </p><p>This time Luke had no answer.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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